Fly by Night

CHAPTER FIVE

The helicopter, a Russian-made Mi-24 Hind-D, disappeared in a swirl of dust as it settled onto the uneven surface, a patchwork amalgam of broken concrete and sand. The wheels flexed as weight was transferred from rotor blades to earth, and the whine of the engines fell in both frequency and pitch, more and more until everything came still. There was nothing for a time, nothing except the faint crackle of cooling engines and a curtain of dust drifting on the indifferent breeze. The craft was emblazoned with the markings of the Sudanese Air Force, and a small flag bearing five stars was affixed to one cockpit window. Finally, the helicopter’s side door opened, and two men clambered down to the broken earth.

They were an odd pair, the general and the imam. On physical appearance alone, as different as two men could be. The general was a strapping specimen, even if the straps had gone a bit loose — the circumference of his barrel chest was more than matched by that of his gut. He moved with a soldier’s bravura, yet took five strides to reach full swagger. His stiffly pressed uniform was pinned with rows of shining brass, and the breast of his jacket was a veritable billboard of ribbons. The general’s features were typically Nubian, the dark eyes wide-set and humorless. Any remains of his bristly hair had long ago been shaved away, and the ring of ebony skin at the base of his wheel hat gleamed in the midday sun. His shoulders carried the weight of five stars — he had once considered six, but not even Idi Amin Dada had taken things that far — and the general walked in front, as generals tended to do, with the firm purpose of a man in control.

The imam was the general’s somatic counterpoint. He did not so much walk as drift, a long white robe floating on the breeze. His black beard, long and unkempt in the most pious tradition, fell to the top of his chest, and his eyes were obscured by wide wraparound sunglasses. He was small of stature and slightly built, a circumstance aggravated by the general’s bulk. This contrast, a matter of mere chance at the outset of their association, had served both men well in the careful cultivation of their respective images. One commanding, one humble.

After twenty heavy paces, the general stopped in his tracks and put his hands on his hips. The imam drifted to his side. Both men scanned the horizon all around. There was nothing here to catch the eye. Nothing at all.

“This is the place?” the general remarked in his gruff baritone.

“Yes,” the imam replied. “We are only a few miles from the Egyptian border. It is barren, of course, but that is to our advantage.”

The general nodded.

There truly was little to take in. Sand dominated the horizon in every direction, an ocean of swales that no doubt shifted as freely as the Red Sea itself. Yet at this snapshot moment, the landscape looked as still as stone. They were situated at the center of a rubble field, perhaps ten acres of concrete falling to dust. Both the general and the imam knew the history of the place. A former airfield, it had been built by the Allies during the Second World War, then abandoned as the Germans were pushed northward. Thousands of such makeshift air bases had been constructed in haste all over the world, only to be orphaned with equal alacrity in the wake of frontal advances. For a time after the outbreak of peace, the government had made halfhearted attempts to revive the place, but inevitably it had fallen to disrepair, doomed to rot by forces more destructive than any military campaign — lack of funds, cronyism, bureaucratic indifference. Whatever strategic design had existed in 1944 to build this place had long ceased to be relevant. Without a populace, without backing from the Sudanese Air Force or commercial interests, all that remained was a triangle of beaten concrete waiting to be reclaimed by the desert — time taking man’s work back from whence it came. But this very isolation, together with the geographic location, was what suited their needs so perfectly.

“Give it to me,” the general ordered.

The imam reached into his robe and produced a handheld GPS navigation device. He handed it to the general. The big Nubian pressed buttons to register the waypoint in memory. Then, wanting no chance for error, he said, “Write down these numbers.”

The imam produced a pen and paper, and scribbled the numbers recited by the general. Later, they would compare the coordinates to those on an aeronautical chart that displayed the airfield. The whole process was tedious, but a necessary step. Maps of this region were notoriously inaccurate, a nuisance born not of careless cartography but rather intent — such charts were, by definition, public domain, and the Arab countries of North Africa didn’t want to make things easy should the Israelis or Americans come calling again.

When they were done, the two men stood in silence for a time.

The general looked down and turned over a loose chunk of concrete with the toe of his gleaming boot. “Is this surface adequate?”

After a pause, Imam Khoury said, “For what we have in mind, it is perfect.”

The general stared at him. He was not a man given to humor, yet as Rafiq Khoury watched, the general’s brutish, rough-hewn visage seemed to crack as little used muscles regained memory. The man, apparently, could smile after all.

Five minutes later, they were back in the helicopter and skimming across the desert toward Khartoum.

Davis had been in Sudan for an hour, and he already had three enemies.

He reached the perimeter road and walked straight across, kept going until he hit the tarmac. There, he turned left and skirted the edge of the flight line. For all Sudan’s shortages, he could see that one thing was in abundant supply — concrete. The ramp and taxiways stretched for miles, a gray-white ocean of rock.

As he made his way, Davis studied the aircraft parked along the flight line. The fleets were segregated by utility. A flock of military helicopters sat idle, rotors tied down and plastic plugs stuffed into the engine intakes to keep sand out. Davis had spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and so he knew all about sand. It got into everything — your pockets, your food, your ears. And your aircraft. Sand was the enemy of machinery, so this handful of Russian-made choppers probably didn’t get daily runs. More likely they were kept ready, clean and oiled, waiting for a crisis. Waiting until the government needed a show of either force or goodwill.

The next section of ramp held a cluster of aircraft with a wide mix of types and registrations. Russian, Chinese, Italian, United Nations. This was the humanitarian ramp, the place where boxes with red crosses and bulk food arrived, the frequency and size of the shipments correlating to the immediate state of the world’s conscience.

Finally, at the far end of the concrete ocean, Davis saw what he was looking for. Two DC-3s sat baking on the ramp, doors and windows left ajar to keep the heat from building inside, their aluminum skin undulating in the radiant mirage that rose from the tarmac. By Larry Green’s count, FBN Aviation had seven airplanes at its disposal after the recent mishap. Which meant five were likely in service right now, plowing through African sky to do the bidding of Rafiq Khoury. And beyond the DC-3s, connected by a long taxiway, Davis got his first look at his objective — the remote hangar run by FBN Aviation. It looked just like it had in the satellite photos, a massive block of corrugated metal surrounded by a low fence. He saw a squad of mismatched vehicles parked in front, including two small pickup trucks with guns mounted in their beds. And inside the hangar? A state-of-the-art CIA drone? Davis drew to a stop and wondered.

He’d always had reservations about the entire concept of unmanned aerial vehicles. Pilots were natural skeptics, but from any point of view, drones were part of a strange new world. They flew high and at night so that those being targeted had no way to see or hear them. No way to know what was coming.

For the most part, UAVs in the Middle East were operated by men and women sitting in bunkers in Nevada and California. Surveillance data from their sensors got uplinked to satellites, then downlinked. The information was studied by people sitting in soft armchairs in air-conditioned rooms. Tactical decision trees were run and authorizations to engage sought from uniformed lawyers. Once everything was approved, another uplink and downlink in reverse made things happen. Bright, loud things. That was the reality of air combat today.

It had to be a bizarre way of life for the drone operators, David thought. You wake up in a cozy house in Las Vegas, drop the kids off at school, go to work and sit in front of a world-class gaming console for eight hours. On a given day, you might bore circles in the sky for your entire shift, like some kind of remote-controlled Zamboni driver. Or you might launch a salvo of Hellfire missiles and kill a truckload of people, relying on intelligence assessments that the targets were indeed enemy combatants. Either way, when the day was done you clocked out and picked up the kids from soccer practice. Grilled a few burgers for dinner.

It really was weird.

In Davis’ experience, there were moments in combat when you needed to see and feel and hear everything. Even smell it. Situations changed, and sometimes you had to react fast, almost instantaneously. That was his burn when it came to drones. No flexibility, too much time lag between seeing and acting. But there was an upside — drones carried little risk, which was why commanders liked them. You never had to worry about pilots getting shot down behind enemy lines. Never had to worry about risky search and rescue missions. All you could lose was the hardware.

Of course, even that carried risk, proven by the fact that Davis was here right now.